Friday, October 30, 2009

I must say, this digital scrapping is surprisingly fun - although weird things happen like with this layout, where the penguins got some weird pixels on them. Believe me, they were not there to begin with, but many layers, masks and selections later after saving I noticed them, and couldn't do anything about it. Need more practice...

All in all this was a nice change for the x-masy stuff I've been working on, some cute penguins from Sybille's kit :)

I also used one of the frames, the snowmandala black and white layer and the single snowflake mandala as a brush - and of course the penguin paper :)

Very pleasant to work with, and I seriously am boggled at these frames, they are so detailed! This kit will soon be available at Sybille's Etsy shop.

You gotta love how dogs go about rules and the world. Boyd wouldn't dare to get on the coffee table with either of us in the vicinity - but if the living room is empty and there's blueberry pie on the coffee table... Luckily *we* had eaten most of it already.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Sybille has finished her second kit, and also has her new Etsy-shop running. I had the pleasure to do testing on this one too, and this time she came up with a lovely winter-themed pack called L'Hiver.

The kit is not Christmas-themed as such, but beautiful winter imagery, and I have to say these figure skates took my breath away... I had to use them in my digital layout :)

As always, you can click on the photo to get to Picasa and a larger image.

I used three of the stamps - the figure skates (love em, love em, love em!), the poinsettia and the snowflake mandala and one of the frames. For the background I used one of the black and white patterns with snowflakes. I know, this is kinda the same color theme as the last one, but what can I say, I'm a sucker for purple...

I was planning on a card too, but we got a new printer and as it turned out, the ink takes hours more to dry than the old one and my first try for a card bled to ruin. I'll do another try tomorrow, letting the printer ink dry over night.

I had difficulties containing my laughter this morning when I was cleaning Suvi's litter box. First I empty the dirty litter into a large plastic bag, which I leave on the floor while I wash the box in the tub. When I came from the bathroom with the clean box, there was a very serious kitty doing her business in the plastic bag... It's nice to know that it's not all about the fancy box :D

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #23, and I am working with the *mmmmpf* xmas cards again... I want to remind everyone, I am NOT a xmas person, but most people are, and they kinda need cards.

I got this wonderful Vintage Christmas set from Crafty Secrets and it rocks, even if I don't like christmas! The stamps are sooo beautiful :)

The chipboard is from Maya Road and is painted with white acrylic paint and clear Stickles. The green cards are from my trusty stack of paint samples :D I think I have to go and hoard some more greens and reds.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The blog world is amazing, you get to know talented people you'd never accidentally meet in real life... Once upon a time Sybille from Magpie Magic bought my wristie-pattern, we ended up chatting and have been reading each others blogs ever since :) Sybille is a really talented artist, with real canvas and digital too, and she decided to create her own scrap kits, or Scrap(K)its and asked if I would test them. She didn't have to ask me twice ;)

Here's what I've done with her first kit called Papillion, which will eventually be available for purchase through her Scrap(K)it blog. For now you can get a sneak peek here.

First I ventured into a scary new dimension for me: digital scrapping!

(you can click to check out a bigger image)

For this layout I used 1 of the background papers, 1 of the black and white patterns and both of the L-shaped frames. I loved the frames, as they were quite large to begin with - no worries on having them too small for the layout. The black and white pattern was great too, as you can layer it with the background papers and get multiple designs that way. The layout is a bit plain because, as I said, this was my first try with digital scrapping... So really this doesn't show the full potential of the kit.

Since I wasn't too happy about my basic image editing skills and the layout, I whipped up a proper card too :) Now this is great for a butterfly-loving girl for example!

I used one of the butterfly stamps from the kit, as well as the rectangular frame, 1 background paper and one black and white pattern. I colored the butterfly with watercolor pencils (dry), cut it out and distressed the edges and inked them with Distress Ink Dusty Concord and embossed it with one of those nobby-end tools. The original stamp has drawn antennae, but I replaced them with copper wire ones. After coloring I sprayed it with Glimmer Mist Sand - and what a pain it is to try to repeat the glimmer in photograph. This image will give you a little better idea. Again, click for larger images.

The frame I printed out black and white and cut it out, distressed the edges and again applied Dusty Concord. All of the frames have this lovely swirly theme going on and I had a hard time picking out which one I wanted for the card cause they are all so cool!

The background paper I printed out with some color adjustments and the black and white pattern as it was. Then I used 2 retro flower punches to make the flowers, coloring the smaller ones with Dusty Concord and added some bling, half pearls and ribbon.

As you can see, the kit is great for both digital and paper. The stamps are wonderfully detailed - so much so that the moth actually creeps me out as I really am not fond of insects in real life :D They are also pleasantly large originally - sometimes I have trouble with digital stamps actually being too small to begin with.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Suvi's been super bored as she hasn't been able to play properly with the surgical collar on. So bored in fact that she began to be interested on the mouse cursor on the displays and eventually even World of Warcraft :D

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Kitty-sterilization is happily over, and yesterday we picked our very much doped Suvi from the vet. She was really wobbly and cuddly the whole evening, even laying in my lap(!) for a long time. Yes, stationary humans are warm and comfy...

We bough a surgical jacket just in case she would lick her wound, and of course she did. What we didn't count in was how much she hates wearing anything, so it took her 10 minutes to get the jacket off. I didn't dare to put in on her again, as I figured her fighting it might do more damage to the wound than her licking. Today I got her a plastic collar instead. She hated that too, but so far hasn't managed to get it off.

Monday, October 5, 2009

The puppy is on a weeks "vacation" with my hubby's parents, as tomorrow Suvi will be relieved from her womanly parts and rest of the week will be recuperating from the operation in a dog-free house. I have not consciously noticed how much time the animals spend together during the day, until today I realized the amount of company Suvi gets from the dog as she has been following me around, playing with me and biting me in turn and meowing a lot.

Again I played with Distress Inks, using heavy weight watercolor paper and Antique Linen, Spiced Marmelade and Vintage Photo and the ink blending tool from Ranger. The weeds (I have no idea what those are called in English) are from Scrapmagasinet and are stamped in Archival sepia - then I used Antique Linen and Vintage Photo to paint on some grass to the bottom. I omitted the text in the sketch as this is going for sale and I need a neutral card fitting for multiple occasions.

The brads are from Eyelet Outlet - they reside in the US but offer really cheap shipping. I ordered 6 different types and the postage was 3.85 USD to Norway.